RAMADAN 2007 The 5th Day

THE STRIKING FEATURES OF BUTTERFLIES

HARUN YAHYA

Look over the butterflies' wings in the picture on the right as if you were seeing them for the first time. Surely you will be filled with admiration for such an aesthetic display, a symmetry that is without the slightest flaw, the dazzling colors and patterns. Now think of a piece of cloth. Assume that it is a very beautiful piece of cloth of good quality that has been woven with the inspiration of these butterflies' patterns. What would you think if you saw such a piece of cloth in a shop-window? Probably, the existence of an artist, who has drawn the patterns of this cloth, taking the wings of a butterfly as an inspiration while drawing them, springs into your mind, and you appreciate his artistry. In this situation, you should also appreciate this fact: the artistry you admire doesn't belong to the person who draws the cloth pattern, taking butterflies as his example, but to Allah, Who is the originator of the patterns and colors of butterfly wings. The colorful wings of butterflies with their wonderfully varied patterns are magnificent manifestations of Allah's artistry in color. Just as a pattern on a piece of cloth does not come into being by chance, so is the color and pattern symmetry in the wings so perfect that they could not have come into being coincidentally.

Moreover, the splendid wings are not the only striking features of butterflies. The body design of butterflies is also perfect in every respect. The butterflies take in nourishment by sucking up nectar from flowers. Most butterflies have a long organ called a proboscis which they use to reach a liquid that is at some depth. A proboscis is a long tongue used to drink water or to suck up nectar from flowers. The butterfly rolls up its long tongue inwards when it isn't using it. This tongue can be three times the length of a butterfly's body when unrolled.

Like other insects, the butterflies also have a skeleton that covers the outer surface of their bodies. This outer or exoskeleton is composed of hard plates connected by soft tissue, looking like some sort of armor. The hard material is called "chitin." The formation of this layer comes about through a very interesting process. As is commonly known, caterpillars pass through a rather complex process called metamorphosis. The caterpillar first becomes a pupa and then turns into a butterfly. Throughout this process of metamorphosis, slight changes occur in the wings, antennae, legs and other body parts. Also, the cells in different key areas such as the flight muscles and wings re-organize themselves through every phase of metamorphosis. Furthermore, along with these changes, almost all systems in the body -the digestive system, excretory system, respiratory system etc.- go through a process of immense change.

This diversity in design that butterflies have, as much as their wings, belongs to Allah, the All-Powerful. Allah is the One Who bestows every creature with the characteristics it needs.

You can also watch the movie >> Amazing Animals1

EVOLUTION DECEIT - V

HARUN YAHYA

THE FOSSIL RECORD REFUTES EVOLUTION

According to the theory of evolution, every living species has emerged from a predecessor. One species which existed previously turned into something else over time and all species have come into being in this way. According to the theory, this transformation proceeds gradually over millions of years.

If this were the case, then innumerable intermediate species should have lived during the immense period of time when these transformations were supposedly occurring. For instance, there should have lived in the past some half-fish/half-reptile creatures which had acquired some reptilian traits in addition to the fish traits they already had. Or there should have existed some reptile/bird creatures, which had acquired some avian traits in addition to the reptilian traits they already possessed. Evolutionists refer to these imaginary creatures, which they believe to have lived in the past, as "transitional forms".

If such animals had really existed, there would have been millions, even billions, of them. More importantly, the remains of these creatures should be present in the fossil record. The number of these transitional forms should have been even greater than that of present animal species, and their remains should be found all over the world. In The Origin of Species, Darwin accepted this fact and explained:

If my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking most closely all of the species of the same group together must assuredly have existed... Consequently evidence of their former existence could be found only amongst fossil remains.(1)

Even Darwin himself was aware of the absence of such transitional forms. He hoped that they would be found in the future. Despite his optimism, he realised that these missing intermediate forms were the biggest stumbling-block for his theory. That is why he wrote the following in the chapter of the The Origin of Species entitled "Difficulties of the Theory":

… Why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion, instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?… But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?… But in the intermediate region, having intermediate conditions of life, why do we not now find closely-linking intermediate varieties? This difficulty for a long time quite confounded me.(2)

The only explanation Darwin could come up with to counter this objection was the argument that the fossil record uncovered so far was inadequate. He asserted that when the fossil record had been studied in detail, the missing links would be found.

Believing in Darwin's prophecy, evolutionist paleontologists have been digging up fossils and searching for missing links all over the world since the middle of the 19th century. Despite their best efforts, no transitional forms have yet been uncovered. All the fossils unearthed in excavations have shown that, contrary to the beliefs of evolutionists, life appeared on earth all of a sudden and fully-formed. Trying to prove their theory, evolutionists have instead unwittingly caused it to collapse.

A famous British paleontologist, Derek V. Ager, admits this fact even though he is an evolutionist:

The point emerges that if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find-over and over again-not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another.(3)

Another evolutionist paleontologist Mark Czarnecki comments as follows:

A major problem in proving the theory has been the fossil record; the imprints of vanished species preserved in the Earth's geological formations.

This record has never revealed traces of Darwin's hypothetical intermediate variants - instead species appear and disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationist argument that each species was created by God.(4)

These gaps in the fossil record cannot be explained by saying that sufficient fossils have not yet been found, but that they one day will be. Another American scholar, Robert Wesson, states in his 1991 book Beyond Natural Selection, that "the gaps in the fossil record are real and meaningful". He elaborates this claim in this way:

The gaps in the record are real, however. The absence of a record of any important branching is quite phenomenal. Species are usually static, or nearly so, for long periods, species seldom and genera never show evolution into new species or genera but replacement of one by another, and change is more or less abrupt.(5)

(For further reading, see "The Evolution Deceit" by Harun Yahya)

(1) Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition, Harvard University Press, 1964, p. 179
(2) Ibid, pp. 172, 280
(3) Derek V. Ager, "The Nature of the Fossil Record", Proceedings of the British Geological Association, Vol 87, 1976, p. 133
(4) Mark Czarnecki, "The Revival of the Creationist Crusade", MacLean's, January 19, 1981, p. 56
(5) R. Wesson, Beyond Natural Selection, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1991, p. 45

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